Tuesday, October 20, 2009

A Week of Kindness

Things are a bit surreal around the store today as we spend time in the gallery preparing for tonight's reception of Picturing Childhood. But the children in the antique photographs aren't the only ones living in a sepia-toned fantasy land. The hawkish gentleman and his catty companion in our window display stepped straight out of such a world.

Here are the cards that inspired our window. They were printed by Charles Overbeck at Eberhardt Press in Portland, Oregon, and they depict scenes from Max Ernst's Une Semaine de Bonte, or A Week of Kindness. Ernst created the scenes by collaging together Victorian illustrations from novels and encyclopedias, issuing the results in a series of self-published pamphlets in 1934.

Many thanks to Charles for reviving Une Semaine as a series of cards. You can visit the Online Shoppe to see all eight images.